Liesl Folks Named Dean of UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

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Liesl Folks, an internationally recognized expert in
nanotechnology and magnetism, has been appointed dean of the UB
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Liesl Folks, PhD, an internationally recognized
expert in nanotechnology and magnetism, has been appointed dean of
the University at Buffalo's nationally ranked School of Engineering
and Applied Sciences.

Her appointment, which will be effective before the start of the
spring semester, was announced today by UB Provost Charles F.
Zukoski, who said Folks rose to the top of nearly 60 highly
qualified candidates from around the world.

Folks will join UB from HGST, a hard disk drive company in San
Jose, Calif., where she has worked for more than nine years, first
as a researcher and since 2008 leading the development and delivery
of new media advanced technologies to the marketplace.

Zukoski praised Folks' unique blend of academic and industry
experience, her ability to build partnerships with federal agencies
and prominent advisory boards, as well as her body of work during a
distinguished career. Folks holds 14 U.S. patents and is the author
of more than 50 peer-reviewed papers. She was an author of a paper
on bit-patterned magnetic recording media published by the journal
Science that has been cited roughly 3,000 times.

"We are incredibly pleased to have Dr. Folks lead the School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences. Not only does she have an
exceptional track record of being at the forefront of
groundbreaking research, she is a passionate educator and highly
skilled leader who will ensure that the engineering school
continues its upward trajectory of excellence," Zukoski said. "Her
arrival will help the university move forward with the UB 2020
strategic plan, which calls for making UB one of the nation's
premier public research universities."

Folks will succeed Harvey Stenger Jr., who left the deanship in
spring 2011 and is now president of Binghamton University. Rajan
Batta, professor of industrial and systems engineering, will
continue to serve as interim dean until the start of next
semester.

Folks' experience in academia includes roles as a teacher,
researcher, mentor and advisor. She has taught undergraduate and
graduate students, supervised postdoctoral researchers, student
researchers and interns and served as a dissertation advisor to
doctoral students. Her many university collaborations include
serving as an advisor to Cornell University's Center for Nanoscale
Systems and collaborating with scientists at Oxford University, UC
Santa Barbara, Ohio State, University of Colorado, the Rochester
Institute of Technology and more.

She has been an invited lecturer at prestigious universities and
an organizer of many academic conferences, including the 2018
International Conference on Magnetism, which she is helping to
bring back to the U.S. for the first time in 30 years.

Zukoski said Folks is the ideal person to guide the engineering
school as it continues to explore new educational programs,
research and partnerships to benefit students, faculty and the
community, and as it develops new technologies and innovations
through basic and applied research.

UB President Satish K. Tripathi said Folks is an extraordinary
addition to UB's academic leadership team. "Her stellar reputation
in the nanotechnology field precedes her, and her depth and breadth
of expertise are remarkable," he added.

"Dr. Folks' leadership experience in both academia and industry,
her extensive mentorship engagement and her key advisory roles to
federal agencies and national research centers have given her a
uniquely multidimensional perspective and a wonderfully complex
understanding of the issues, opportunities and challenges facing a
world-class engineering program at a major research-intensive
university."

Engineering is a traditionally male-dominated field, but women
such as Folks continue to break down barriers, Tripathi noted. She
joins six other women who serve as engineering deans at institutes
of higher learning (Harvard, Yale, Toronto, Purdue, Texas A&M
and Florida) in the prestigious Association of American
Universities.

Folks has an extensive network of professional connections. She
is the first woman to serve as president-elect of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Magnetics Society. She serves
on the congressionally mandated Triennial Review of the National
Nanotechnology Initiative, facilitated by the National Academy of
Sciences, and is a regular reviewer for the National Science
Foundation, performing grant reviews, site visits and reverse site
visits covering most major U.S. research centers in her field of
expertise.

A 2008 Science article featured Folks' role in mentoring a
female PhD student at the University at California, Berkeley. Folks
noted that while U.S. universities "turn out easily the best
graduate students in the world" many students struggle because of a
lack of mentoring. Helping students obtain advanced degrees and
ushering them into the workforce was a "worthy goal," she said.

Folks has an exemplary record of support for STEM education
initiatives, from her promotion of innovative programs at the
PreK-12 level, to her role in launching a magnetics summer school
program through the IEEE, which provides summer study opportunities
each year to nearly 100 graduate students from around the
world.

The search committee was co-chaired by E. Bruce Pitman, dean of
the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of mathematics, and
Venu Govindaraju, SUNY Distinguished Professor of computer science
and engineering. "As co-chair of the search committee, I was
thrilled that UB was able to attract someone with the academic
background that Liesl Folks offers," said Pitman. "She brings
tremendous intellectual credentials and a deep understanding of
interdisciplinary collaboration to the deanship."

"I am confident that she will be a superb leader for our
faculty," Govindaraju added. "Her significant leadership skills,
enthusiasm and experience in forging academic and external
partnerships will be a great asset to the larger university and
community as well."

Folks is familiar with upstate New York having earned an MBA at
Cornell University in 2004. She said she looks forward to moving to
Western New York and joining the UB community.

"I am honored and incredibly excited by this opportunity to lead
this truly world-class engineering school and to contribute to the
ambitious vision UB is pursuing," she said. "I have long been
acquainted with the reputation for excellence, innovation and
impact that distinguish both the School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences and the university as a whole.

"That impression just keeps growing stronger and stronger as
I've come to know the remarkable faculty, students and staff of
this school, and as I've talked with more of the academic,
community and industry partners who have experienced that impact
first-hand. I'm thrilled to be part of shaping its future as we
embark on the next chapter together."

Her appointment comes amid significant growth in UB's School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences, which was ranked 54th by U.S.
News and World Report among the nation's best engineering schools
whose highest degree is a doctorate. The school recently opened
Barbara and Jack Davis Hall, a $75 million state-of-the-art
teaching and research facility.

Using resources generated by the NYSUNY 2020 legislation signed
into law last year by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the UB engineering
school is hiring dozens of faculty members to match student
enrollment growth. It recently launched a cross-disciplinary
education program in biomedical engineering and will play a pivotal
role in development of UB's newly designated New York State Center
for Excellence in Materials Informatics, which is leveraging
existing faculty expertise and recruiting additional faculty to
develop and catalog new materials to be used in advanced
manufacturing.

A native of Australia, Folks earned a bachelor of science degree
and a doctor of philosophy, both in physics, from the University of
Western Australia in Perth, where she subsequently worked as a
research fellow enjoying generous external grant funding. Folks
arrived in the U.S. in 1997 to work for IBM's Almaden Research
Center in Silicon Valley.

Outside of work, she hikes, mountaineers, snowboards, cycles and
is an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction.